Innocent The Blender
Location:
Port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Client:
Integrated Food Projects
Sector:
Industrial
Size of Project:
€250M
Services:
- Complex Buildings & Materials
- Net Zero
- Strategy Setting
The Project:
Innocent Drinks, the UK-based smoothie company intends to build its first ever production factory. Located in the Rotterdam Europoort, the factory will produce over 250 million bottles per year in their all electric facility powered by 100% renewable energy.
As client-side sustainability advisor, KLH Sustainability has led the strategic direction and strategy execution on behalf of, and in collaboration with, Innocent Drinks. KLH developed and executed a bespoke sustainability strategy which sets best practice measures against carbon, water, waste, health and wellbeing, biodiversity, community engagement and climate resilience during construction and operation of the factory. KLH worked with innocent and the project team to support and execute the following:
- Identify creative energy reduction measures such as substantially reducing the need for steam, configuring the factory shape to rationalize pipe lengths to reduce losses and challenging room temperature requirements;
- Substitute a standard gas powered CHP energy system with a highly efficient, closed loop, all electric heat pump solution;
- Optimise the energy generation potential on the site by introducing two wind turbines and PV array;
- Introduce an innovative clean-in-place technology that substantially reduces potable water demand compared to a standard equivalent process;
- Work with the International WELL Building Institute to adopt the WELL Building Standard to industrial type buildings. The factory is targeting to achieve WELL Platinum and be the first WELL certified factory in the world;
- Adopt circular economy principles both in construction and at the project’s end of life;
- Create a materials passport to better facilitate material re-use during major refurbishment and deconstruction.
We are building the earth’s favourite little healthy drinks factory. What that means for us is we’re building in a sustainable way and creating a place that will be sustainable for our people, our drinkers and for the planet. What makes KLH Sustainability a special partner in this journey is the passion and the expertise of their team. They have a lovely way of being downright dogged in their approach, challenging us, and our supplier base, to stretch our thinking, to reach for new ideas and thereby realise our dream of a carbon neutral juice factory. We want to inspire wider change, and everyone who gets involved with KLH comes away from that experience wiser, and more motivated to make the informed and bold moves in our design that once enacted will do just that.
Andy Joynson - Innocent Drinks, Chief Blender (or site director if we prefer the corporate title)
